Two days after filling out a state form to apply for health coverage, the Oregon woman received a call with good news: She'd been approved. The caller just needed her bank account information to cover the sign-up fee.

View full sizeOfficials are worried scammers will try to take advantage of publicity over health reforms and Cover Oregon, the agency running ads like this one, featuring singer-songwriter Matt SheehyCourtesy of Cover Oregon

The only problem? There was no sign-up fee, and the caller was a fake.

This fall, thousands of uninsured Oregonians will be contacted about enrolling in health coverage. It's part of a nationwide push to get more people covered under the federal health reforms known as Obamacare, which requires most people to have coverage or pay a fine after Jan. 1. But authorities fear criminals will try to take advantage of widespread confusion over the law.

Already, a new agency called Cover Oregon has launched a publicity campaign about its online insurance marketplace. It opens for enrollment in October.

But as in the 2010 case above, some calls could be fakes. Federal officials and the Better Business Bureau are warning the public to beware of criminals engaging in fraud and identity theft as health insurance mandates kick in.

If it happens to you

If you are contacted by someone claiming to enroll people in health coverage for the government, call Cover Oregon at 1-855-268-3767 to verify they are who they say they are.

If they don't seem legitimate, you can call the Oregon Department of Justice consumer hotline between 8:30a.m. and 4:30a.m. 877-877-9392

"We do anticipate that there will be scammers," says spokesman Frank Dorman of the Federal Trade Commisson, which has already set up an online complaint process to assist federal investigations. The most important advice: Enrollment doesn't begin until October, so contacts before then that urge you to enroll right away are not legitimate. If you have questions about anyone talking to you about insurance, call Cover Oregon to verify their identity.

In Oregon, officials don't intend a separate publicity campaign to alert the public to the potential for fraud. They haven't decided whether to issue badges to certified application assisters.

But they say they are taking steps to protect the public. For instance, unlike some other states, application assisters must be affiliated with a state-certified group.

Scammers "are one of our biggest concerns," says Rachel Oh, a community affairs manager with Cover Oregon. "We want people to really understand that our certified community partners and our certified agents are people you can trust."

Oregon is spending more than $15 million to educate the state's more than 500,000 uninsured. Starting in January, eligibility for the Oregon Health Plan will be expanded to people making less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level, about $23,500 a year for a family of four. People making more than that, but less than 400 percent of the poverty level, will be eligible for a sliding scale of commercial insurance tax credits for premium discounts.

In all, up to 1,000 people will assist the state in insurance enrollment, officials estimate. More than 200 groups or clinics and about 2,000 insurance agents will be eventually certified to help as well.

Cover Oregon is using the Oregon Health Authority to oversee some of its outreach. OHA officials are negotiating contracts with 28 nonprofits and government agencies to approach hard-to-reach rural areas, ethnic groups and recent immigrant populations.

Cover Oregon chose the OHA because of its experience with the Healthy Kids program, which used nonprofits to enroll families in health coverage for children. But Healthy Kids faced criticisms over its oversight. Two nonprofits were terminated for failing to do background checks on outreach workers after The Oregonian asked for documents concerning them.

In one of those cases, a Healthy Kids outreach worker given access to 700 clients' personal information in 2012 turned out to be a convicted forger working under an assumed name.

Cover Oregon officials say they're aware of the earlier criticisms of the Healthy Kids outreach program and intend to learn from them. Any complaints will be referred to the proper authorities. They're confident people using the online application will be legitimate based on an identity proofing system set up by the federal government.

By far the bigger danger concerning fraud stems from people who aren't certified by the state, officals say.